


Agony

by AnotherNamelessGhoul



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Blood and Injury, Fever, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Injury Recovery, M/M, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:20:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22312381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherNamelessGhoul/pseuds/AnotherNamelessGhoul
Summary: Geralt is down with an infected wound and fever, Jaskier is better at nursing him back to health than Geralt would have assumed, and hidden feelings arise for the both of them.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 16
Kudos: 314





	1. Chapter 1

Geralt awoke to Jaskier staring straight down into his face, lying practically on the same bedroll at their temporary camp. His yellow eyes blinked owlishly for a moment but it wasn't truly a surprise; Jaskier had been glued to him since he'd had his side laid open taking down a kikimora. Had it been a day? Two? His perception of time had gone pretty strange. 

"How are you feeling?" Jaskier asked, making no movement to distance himself and so talking directly down the Witcher's nose. Geralt didn't have the strength to move away and even if he did, the warm closeness was something of a comfort. He rolled the question over and pondered it for a second, knowing that Jaskier was likely to scold him relentlessly (again) if he dropped his usual 'fine.' He was freezing even though logically he knew that he was putting out about as much heat as their dying campfire and his head pounded with the fever, thumping in time to his too-quick heartbeat. Anything but lying stock-still pulled at the wound and sent waves of pain up the entire side of him, so blinding that he couldn't see through the tears every time that Jaskier propped him up to sip at some water or some of the broth that he'd made from game they'd caught beforehand.

"Geralt?"

Right, Jaskier had asked him something.

"Sick." He closed his eyes again and jumped when he felt an icy hand rest on his forehead and slide down to cup his cheek. 

"Well that's not much of a surprise, you've got yourself one hell of a fever." Jaskier reached down and pulled the furs away from Geralt, exposing the angry looking wound. He prodded at the area around it with his fingertips and Geralt set his jaw to stop a cry of pain and almost involuntarily caught Jaskier's wrist and wrenched it away before he was aware of what he was doing.

"We need to drain that and clean it up. Maybe take the stitches out and properly flush it. The infection's bad."

"You're a healer now?" He growled, clenching and unclenching his fists in time to the sickening throbs of pain. He knew that Jaskier was only trying to help but his brain was clouded with hurt and fever.

"Well only one of us seems to take any interest in your self preservation and it isn't you. Therefore, I think that lends me some authority." He shifted back a bit so that he wasn't so close to Geralt, looking him over. "Besides, I don't know if you'd make it to get onto Roach, let alone be taken for help. You can't even sit up unaided."

This was true. "Then stop talking about it and do what you think you must."

"You're lucky you have an excuse to be so grumpy because you're not well." He went digging around in their bags, trying to find the suture kit that had been used and then hastily tossed aside during the initial carnage. He slid the leather sheath of it open and took out a pair of shiers.

"I'm so sorry Geralt."

Before Geralt had time to ask what he was sorry for, Jaskier slid the tip of the shiers around the knot holding the sutures closed and snipped the twine, beginning to work the edges from Geralt's skin as quickly as possible, trying not to prolong the pain. Geralt pressed his forearm against his mouth to suppress a scream as the edges of the wound separated and the thread pulled back through the skin. It was like a white hot poker being shoved against his ribcage, stealing away the breath from his lungs.

"This is going to be worse." Jaskier warned once the wound was unstitched. He pressed his fingers deftly to either side of the gash and pressed. Blood and pus poured out from the gash in a mess of gore over Jaskier's hands and the Witcher's side. Geralt's face had gone an ashen gray and the noise that left him was not so much a scream as an animal howl. There was no suppressing the noises of agony whether Geralt wanted to or not. The edges of his vision went white and shimmery around the edges.

"Are you going to pass out on me?" Jaskier asked. "That might be more merciful, honestly."

"No," Geralt said through gritted teeth, and fought back against the encroaching edge of darkness. Passing put meant losing control and if there was one thing Geralt of Rivia could not abide by it was a loss of control.

"Stubborn ass," Jaskier said, but with no harshness behind it. He grabbed one of their canteens and pressed the wound apart with his fingers just enough to flush the water through it, using his other hand to stroke through Geralt's hair, across his forehead, anywhere that seemed like it might offer a modicum of comfort. Geralt's back arched up against it, writhing to try and get away. He howled out again. Something so simple as water washing through the wound felt like acid. He desparately wished for some of the pain medicine he'd been given by healers in the past, something to at least bring it down to a dull background roar. Stupid of him not to carry better medical supplies. Jaskier had said it before and he wasn't wrong.

"Almost done, almost done." The water was running clearer out of the wound now, having cleared away the infected matter. Jaskier took a torn bit of bandage from the bag and swabbed away the mess as best he could. Geralt let a quiet moan escape his throat with each exhalation.

"We've already done this part once, once again should be the easy bit." It was a lie and Jaskier knew it and Gerslt knew it but they could both pretend like it was true. Jaskier worked on redoing the sutures, wishing he had another hand to offer Geralt so the Witcher would have something to squeeze onto. 

"Doing alright?" Jaksier asked and instead of something snarky he just got a few heavy breaths from Geralt and a gesture of his head that could have meant anything. 

"I'm going to walk the area and look for some plants to make a poultice from if you'll be okay enough while I'm gone."

"Since when," Gerald started, still trying to regain his breath, "do you know what plants to harvest to heal?"

"Since I started riding with your accident-prone ass." He gave Geralt's hand a little squeeze. "I'll be within earshot so yell if you need me and I'll be back as soon as I can."

Geralt nodded and let his eyes drop closed.


	2. Chapter 2

Geralt snapped awake almost without the awareness that he had fallen asleep to begin with. He opened his eyes and then immediately closed them again against the harshness of the noon-day sun. His head thrummed in time to the pounding of his wound and his thoughts were all clouded over, like he was trying to access them from a thousand miles away. 

He was alone, and he didn't remember where he was. The only memory was the pain, sharp and bright and in the forefront of everything. It wasn't safe here. Something had hurt him and he couldn't remember when or why. He needed to go. 

He forced his eyes open again. Roach was gone, too. Dire straits. He forced himself into a sitting position and a pop of stars cut out his vision as white-hot agony blazed across his ribcage like he'd been set on fire from the inside out. He retched, not able even to turn away from his own lap, and the force of it had him weeping and trying to press on his wound like he was holding the pieces of himself together. 

There was a sound, and that was bad because Geralt didn't know what it was and his body wasn't cooperating to let him look and see. Someone swore and a figure appeared in front of him, all shape and shadow through his washed out vision. He pulled away, terrified. What had come to finish him off, now that he was defenseless? The figure swore again but the words weren't penetrating any rational part of his brain.

Words, there were words. "You're alright, it's alright, I've got you." He didn't understand. The figure reached put towards him and something clicked on in his brain, the Witcher part of him, and with every bit of strength he could mutter he lashed out, striking as hard as he could, which was admittedly far less threatening than he would have been had every movement not caused him to neatly vomit or faint away again. The figure stumbled backwards and cried out, and Geralt caught it and wrenched his hands around it's throat. There was a horrible strangling sound and the thing swung back with an elbow and caught Geralt hard across the temple. The blow was enough to knock his already weakened body back down onto the bedroll, breath hitching almost as hard as his assailant. This new pain brought him back out of the fever-driven delirium, just for a second. He remembered. The kikimora. His bard. Oh, fuck, his bard.

"Fuck, Jaskier, oh fuck," but the words were less than a whisper. To Jaskier's credit he was already walking back towards Geralt from where he had fled to and not leaving him to die there. He had one hand pressed to his jaw and he was still breathing heavily but he sat down anyways and slowly extended a hand, mumbling quiet platitudes that Geralt didn't think he deserved.

"I shouldn't have scared you, I knew better than that," he said, voice raspy from the assault to his windpipe, and Geralt tried again to apologize, to ask him if he was okay, before he felt consciousness slip away again.


	3. Chapter 3

Geralt woke up with his clothes completely stripped, shivering naked beneath all of the furs and blankets that they carried. There was some thick green tinged paste over his wound, and the pain of it was less crippling than when he'd fallen asleep, at the very least. The headache had faded a little, too; just the throbbing ghost of it set deep behind his eyes.

"You threw up on yourself and I wasn't about to leave you that way so I stripped you down and washed your clothes. They're set out to dry for when you get up, which will NOT be today."

Geralt groaned, and then the memory of what he'd done hit him and with it a wave of terrible guilt set deep in his gut.

"Are you alright?" He asked. Jaskier was sitting on the other side of their fire, possibly worried about the possibility of another round of violence, but as Geralt woke up he moved closer.

"Am I alright? I come back to find you delirious, covered in sweat, tears, blood and vomit and you ask if I'm alright?"

"I hurt you."

Instinctually Jaskier's hand rose to the knot blossoming on his jaw where he'd taken the hardest hit, to the faint ghost of hand shaped bruises that had blossomed on his throat. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't you in there. Stop looking at me like I'm a puppy you accidentally kicked."

"I could've killed you."

"No you couldn't. You're not even strong enough to hold your own weight. Besides, if you had any murderous desire you'd have taken me down already all these nights while I slept-"

"Jaskier."

Jaskier pressed a hand to Geralt's forehead, clicked his tongue and wrung out a cloth that he'd dampened in the river. "I'm joking. You know I trust you."

Geralt reached up to press his fingers along Jaskier's jawline, feeling for dislocation or fracture. He winced in pain at the movement and Jaskier caught his hand and squeezed it between his own.

"Stop trying to nurse me and let someone take care of you for once, okay? I'm fine Geralt. No harm done."

"Jaskier-"

"Angst is not conducive to healing." He lay down next to Geralt, propping his head on his folded arms, "and right now I think we could both use some proper rest."

He could see Geralt stiffen beside him, almost imperceptibly. Jaskier only moved closer, tucking his head into the crook of the Witcher's arm when Geralt didn't stop him. 

"You won't hurt me again."

"You riding along with me, that's not a promise either of us can make." He watched Jaskier in the dying light of the evening. 

Jaskier moved closer, slowly. His lips on Geralt's startled the Witcher but he parted his own ever-so-slightly, letting Jaskier deepen the kiss for a moment before pulling away. 

"I trust you." Jaskier repeated. "That includes not slapping me for that."

"Mm." Geralt didn't answer but he did move the arm on his good side to lay over the much smaller form of the bard as they drifted off to sleep.


End file.
